


New and Familiar

by The_Anglophile



Series: All Manson fic by The_Anglophile [2]
Category: Marilyn Manson (Band)
Genre: Holy Wood, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:58:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Anglophile/pseuds/The_Anglophile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The band are busy making Holy Wood and everything seems to be peachy (well, peachy for everyone except John), but when someone named Tim starts calling Manson, Twiggy finds that he isn't sure any more where his best friend's loyalties lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New and Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Marilyn Manson or any of its members, and all real names herein are used in a strictly fictional context.
> 
> A/N: Warnings are at the end of the fic.

**Part 1**

The desert was vast. So utterly spacious and flat, broken only by mounds of rocky earth that were somewhere in size between mountains and large hills. Scrubby plants sprouted here and there in little ditches where water collected. The sky was unimaginably huge and empty; clouds were rare occurences in this dry land. During the day, the sky was pale and washed out by the sun, like a crappy hotel painting that's been near a window too long, and at night I felt that I was looking into a black ocean full of millions of tiny glowing fish. An ocean that I might fall into. I felt so exposed sitting under the night sky.

"Are there, like, bears here?" I glanced through the darkness around me, scanning the low hills for animal shapes, and rubbed my arms to try to warm them up. The desert got suprisingly cool at night.

"No. Why the hell would there be bears in a desert? They live in the forest."

"I dunno. It seemed like something that might exist. Desert bears."

"What would they eat? _Sand?_ "

"Of course! Sand is very nutritious!"

"Uh-huh."

"It is! Eat some and you'll see." I threw a handful of sand at him and he cringed, trying to cover his eyes. He scowled at me and brushed the sand off his clothing.

"Here, have some more sand. It might cheer you up," I said, and started pushing a pile of it towards him. He kicked it away with his boot, and some got in my face. "Ow."

I rubbed my eyes and decided to leave him alone for a while. He'd been pretty grumpy that day, bitching at everyone for minor mistakes in their playing. Considering the way he insisted on expressing himself on our albums, he probably felt as exposed to the world as I did to the sky, and that wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling.

We sat in silence for some minutes, him gazing expressionlessly at our surroundings, while I tried to blink a last piece of sand out of my eye. Having succeeded at this, I lay on my back on the cool dune and attempted for about the twentieth time to fathom the hugeness of the sky. Several minutes later he surprised me by speaking.

"Desert bears would eat people."

I looked at him curiously. "Why?"

"Well, what _other_ animal is stupid enough to spend time out here?"

"Good point," I said, and smirked. It was a good point. I'd seen maybe two roadrunners and some bugs during our stay so far. No Wile E. Coyote. Or anything else for that matter. "So," I said, "would they eat you or me first? I think you're more meaty than I am."

"Doubtful," he retorted, "No, I think they'd try to eat John, actually. He'd be wandering around, looking for wildflowers, and the bear would just come up and slap him in the back of the head and drag him off to its den. Simple."

I laughed. "We should tell him about the desert bears!"

"Good idea. Then we can make him go get something outside for us." He stood up, and I followed, pleased by the notion of tormenting John. He paused a moment, then swatted at my dreads. "You've got sand in your hair." I shook it out as we tramped back to the building.

Once inside, we peeked into each room we passed until we found John. He was alone at the moment, and his face turned wary when he saw the two of us approaching him so purposefully. "What?" he said suspiciously as we walked up to him. He raised an eyebrow. I tried to look as guiless as possible.

"We were wondering where you put the Bauhaus album," Marilyn said, "We wanted to listen to it."

"It's on the bus somewhere. You can go look."

"No, it'll take us ages. _You_ go get it." Marilyn said this in his most imperious tone, and looked at John with the hard-eyed stare he used to assert his authority.

Frustration flashed over John's features for a moment, but then his face smoothed out. "Ok," he said passively. "I'll go get it in a minute. I want to finish my sandwich."

Manson nodded and turned to leave. "Come on," he said to me, "I want to tell you something.”

I turned to follow him and smiled to myself once John couldn’t see my face. I knew how this would go.

We moved out of the room, but not far from it, and leaned against the wall. Marilyn proceeded to explain to me in a quiet voice about the desert bears he’d seen on National Geographic and how dangerous they were, and that I should be very careful going outside at night. He made sure to raise the volume of his voice occasionally on words like “bears”, “dangerous”, and “nocturnal”. We knew without a doubt that John was listening to all this beyond the open door. Once we’d gotten through the whole desert bears spiel, we moved on to small talk about the new album to make the conversation less suspicious.

John soon emerged from the room, and, just as we’d hoped, he didn’t proceed immediately to the exit to go look for the CD, but stopped next to us. He had the look on his face that he got when he was trying to hide his feelings. I loved it when he looked like that. Messing with his head was such a pleasure. I knew from years of practice that my own face was inscrutable, and Manson’s deadpan expression mirrored mine.

John fidgeted a moment as we continued talking, then interrupted. “I think you should go get the album yourselves,” he said.

“I already told you that it would be easier for us if _you_ went to get it, “ Marilyn replied dismissively.

“I’ve got other things to be doing.”

“So do we.”

John was getting angrier by the second. I was thrilled.

“Well, I think you forgot to tell me something,” he said bluntly, a pout starting to form on his face.

“And what’s that?” Marilyn goaded him, not even looking at him.

“ _Desert bears?_ ” John promtped impatiently. “Sound familiar?”  
“What about them?” Marilyn said in a bored tone, still refusing to make eye contact with John.

John lost his composure. “Oh come ON! You two think this is funny? Is this another one of your sick little games? _‘Send John outside to get mauled by the bears so we can laugh at him’?_ ” He looked at me. “Twiggy? I know you’re in on this.”

My poker face nearly cracked. It was all I could do to keep from grinning ear to ear. “In on what?” I said.

“Don’t play dumb!” he spat at me. “I know you’re just as fucked up as he is!”

Manson spoke. “Just go get the damn disc and stop your bitching. You’re being ridiculous.”

John was fuming. He turned and started to walk away from us. Action time.

Manson and I leapt after him and grabbed him by the arms. “ _Fucking let go of me!_ ” He yelled.

“No,” Marilyn replied. “Not until you get the CD for us.” We muscled him over to the exit and I managed to get the door open with one hand while still keeping a strong grip on his arm. We shoved him outside, but not before he could give me a hard kick in the shin. I fell to floor clutching my leg while Marilyn slammed the door shut and locked it. He slid down next to me on the floor, loudly laughing at John as he pounded on the door and yelled obscenities at us. Manson caught my eyes, and despite the pain in my leg, I had to laugh too. It was wonderful.

We lay on the floor, laughing until we were breathless, and then giggled gleefully as John started to tire of pounding on the door. I called out to him. “Just go get the CD. We’ll let you in if you do.”

“FUCK YOU!” he yelled with renewed vigour, and started kicking the door. This just cracked us up again. Our laughter angered him more than anything. “ _Fuck you, you fucking cunts! I’ll break a fucking window!_ ”

“And guess who’s out of a job if he does that?” Manson retorted between giggles. John just kicked the door even more violently.

At that moment, Pogo, Ginger, and several engineers rounded the corner, looking concerned and curious. When they saw us lying on the floor laughing and heard John’s voice from outside, Pogo and Ginger rolled their eyes and walked back the way they had come without a word to us. The engineers stood around a minute longer, having never witnessed our cruelty to John before, but quickly got bored and left us alone with our victim.

Judging by our previous exploits, I figured that we would be there a while yet before John gave in to our demands, so I decided it was time for whiskey. I had a flask in one of my pockets, which I pulled out and took a sip from before offering it to Marilyn. He took a deep draught and passed it back. We traded the flask back and forth until we started to feel buzzed, and then kept right on drinking. Once the flask was done for, I went and got us a bottle of Jack Daniel's from my stash. We always wondered, what is the point of drinking if you're not going to get drunk? So that's exactly what we did. John just kept loudly griping at us and banging on the door, and eventually Marilyn told him to shut up or else the bears would find him and eat him right there. That quieted him down considerably. He kept shaking the handle, but he stopped yelling and swearing. It was pleasantly still.

As Manson and I lay lazily together against the door, I remembered a song from childhood. I thought it was a drinking song, so I started singing it. "There were ten in the bed and the little one said, 'Roll over! Roll over!' So they all rolled over and one fell out..." This seemed like the logical point to take a drink, so I did. I passed the bottle to Marilyn and grabbed his hand when he tried to take a sip. "No! You have to sing first," I said. He seemed to accept this.

"There were nine in the bed and the little one said, 'Blow Grover! Blow Grover!' So they all blew Grover and one caught the clap..." I guessed the song had brought up Sesame Street memories for him. Whatever worked.

We kept singing until the bottle was approaching empty, by which time we were both pretty messed up. It was good that we weren't in any need of using our legs. Manson slid down the wall to lie flat on his back on the floor and tried to pour the last bit of the whiskey into his mouth. It missed, hitting him in the nose, and ran down the side of his face into his hair, finally ending up in a small puddle on the floor. "Ew." He shifted his head slightly to get his hair out of the puddle. He glanced at me. "I dare you to drink that."

I took a moment to consider. I hated to see alcohol go to waste, especially when I was already drunk, and besides, it was a dare. It's not like anybody else was watching. I leaned over and started licking it off the floor.

He watched me from the corner of his eye in a slightly fascinated way. "That is so totally disgusting. You know that?" he said.

"You dared me to drink it, asshole."

"I didn't think you actually would."

I settled down next to him and contented myself with staring at the ceiling tiles. They were much less boring when you were drunk, I'd noticed. "I wonder what John's doing?" I said conversationally. "He's gotten really quiet."

"He's probably just sitting out there. He's so fucking stubborn." Manson banged on the door. "Hey, Five! You got our CD yet?"

Silence.

"He'd better not be trying to get in some other way," Manson mumbled to me, and hit the door again. "JOHN! We're gonna go piss in your guitar case!"

Again, no answer.

"I don't want to play with him anymore." I said. Marilyn still looked annoyed that John hadn't replied, but didn't call out to him again. After several minutes he happened to look over at me and paused, his expression turning to one of irritation. Just as I was about to scoot out of harm's way, he reached over, grabbed one of my dreads and started picking at it.

"Ow. Could you stop?" I asked. He was pulling pretty hard.

"No. You still have sand in your hair."

I have no idea why it bothered him so much. It didn't bother me. His incessant, monkey-like grooming was boring and sort of annoying, so I did what I often do when I'm bored and want attention. I unzipped my pants and pulled out my dick. I'm not sure why, but I find it satisfying to show it to other people, particularly him. He paused for a moment in his self-appointed task of cleaning my hair and watched as I played with it. "You're such a freak, Twiggy," he said to me.

I ignored him. "Do you think I should get it tattooed?" I asked, as I flopped it back and forth.

"No way."

"Why not?"

"'Cause it'd hurt like fuck."

"Not if they put me to sleep first."

"But think about afterwards."

I thought about it briefly as he continued tugging my hair. "You could get yours tattooed and then we'd both suffer. You could get it tattooed black like that rumour."

"Fuck no."

"What about green?"

"If you want to do that to yourself, you can do it alone. I'm not participating."

"You don't want to be Colourful Dick Brothers with me?" I teased.

"No, and your dick doesn't need extra colour anyway," he said, reaching over to grab it. "I mean, look at it. It's like..." He searched for the appropriate word. "...sienna."

"What kind of colour is that?" I laughed.

"The colour of your dick."

"It's like a Bob Ross colour," I said, "I could promote his show."

Manson laughed. "You could promote a lot of "shows" with this thing," he said, squeezing it lightly, "You should be in porn."

"You two are so gay."

We turned our heads in unison and saw John standing with Pogo and Ginger a little way down the hall. They must have taken pity on him.

Marilyn raised his head slightly and sneered at John. "I get more pussy in a week than you do in a year," he retorted. He gave my dick a last squeeze and let it go.

"They're totally drunk. Let's just do this." Ginger said.

I hastily put my dick away and lay back to wait for John's revenge. I was just a little too drunk to care much about escaping.

The three of them approached and John and Ginger reached out to grab Manson. He tried to take a swing at them, but John gave him a good kick and he stopped. They heaved him to his feet, which was quite a task considering his size and the fact that he refused to use any of his muscles. Pogo had the door open, and they managed to shove Manson out of it into the sand. He didn't bother trying to get up.

Next they came for me, and John grabbed a handful of my hair to yank me upright. I normally would have hit him for that, but I was too out of it to react properly. He and Ginger ejected me forcefully out the door, and I landed on Marilyn's legs. I heard the door slam shut and the lock click into place, and I knew we were screwed. There was no way we'd be getting back inside before morning.

I crawled off of Marilyn and he sat up. I sat next to him, and we stared out into the desert for a while, silently. The stars were bright and numerous, as ever, and the three-quarter moon was rising over the hill-mountain-things, illuminating the vast stretches of sand all around us. I didn't mind the bigness of the sky so much now that I was drunk, and I stared blankly at the blackness above us. Eventually I had an idea. “Do you think they left the bus unlocked?”

“I doubt it.”

We sat for several more minutes. I was itching to do something. “Let's try it anyway,” I said. Couldn't hurt to try. He nodded and we lurched to our feet, putting our arms over each other's shoulders for balance. We staggered to the bus and I grabbed the handle of the door, but it was locked, as we feared. Manson sighed and rested his head against the smooth side of the bus, taking some of his weight off my shoulder. The moon was shining through his hair, making weird shadows on the side of his face. His hair was moving slightly in the breeze, and the shadows came to life against his pale skin. I watched for a while, entranced. His eyes were closed and I was starting to wonder if he'd fallen asleep when he finally spoke.

“I guess we're camping out tonight,” he said, looking at me.

It took a moment to register that he'd spoken. “Yeah,” I agreed. I briefly thought that maybe some of the other cars around the side of the building might be unlocked, but I didn't really feel like walking that far, honestly. The alcohol was making me kind of sleepy.

Manson started walking out into the sand, still gripping my shoulder for support. We stumbled over the small mounds of sand a short distance until we reached a fairly deep depression between two dunes. Here Manson abruptly sat down (or collapsed, rather) into the sand, dragging me with him by the collar of my shirt. I landed awkwardly on one knee, and caught myself with a hand to the ground.

“C'mere,” Manson mumbled at me, tugging hard at my sleeve. It was very dark, but the moon was illuminating one of his eyes, which glowed bright green. His eyes were always changing colours, even without contacts. I scooted closer to him and he wrapped a warm arm around my waist and kissed me. We both had cold lips, but they warmed up quickly. I could taste the whiskey on him, and I knew he could taste it on me as well. At least it wasn't so bad if we both reeked of it. Usually it was just me.

His other hand wandered up and settled loosely around my throat as he kissed me. He had never applied pressure any of the many times he put a hand on my neck, but it still made me feel uneasy. There could always be a first time. Back when he used to wear those elastic bands around his neck, I would tug on them when we made out, just to see what he would do. Sometimes he ignored it, but usually he moved my hand to some other part of his body.

As it was, he was stroking my neck with his thumb. It was rhythmic and reminded me of a cat kneading its paws. We would go through periods in which we were more-or-less attached at the hip, and these past few weeks had been such, resulting in his affectionate side coming out stronger than it usually did. His kisses were slow and familiar; I knew his mouth so well now that I could almost name its every feature.

I started to slide my hand down the back of his pants the way he liked, but he broke the kiss and gently pulled my hand away. Before I could say anything, he enveloped me in a tight hug, which I gladly returned. It was one of those satisfying hugs where you can just relax and enjoy the warmth and presence of the other person. After staying that way for a while, he kissed my hair and said, “Let's go to sleep.” I nodded and we lay down side by side on the dune, shifting and wriggling a bit to try to get the sand in a more comfortable position. Other than the sound of the breeze around the building, it was very still and quiet, and I had little trouble summoning sleep to me. When I started to drift off, Marilyn spoke.

“I forgot to tell you. I got a call recently from a member of KMFDM. Tim Sköld. He wants to maybe work together sometime soon. He's a really good guitarist - I bet you'll like him. I'm supposed to meet him in two weeks. You should come along.”

“Sure,” I said. I wasn't really paying much attention, being too close to sleep. I doubted much would come of it, anyway. We didn't do all that many collaborations, mostly due to Manson's pickiness about who he wanted to work with. Our current band lineup seemed pretty stable, too. Despite all the crap we gave him, I doubted Manson would dump John off-hand for some new guitarist, as he was truly an amazing player.

I fell alseep at last and all thoughts relating to Tim were erased from my mind.

 

Two weeks later, Marilyn called me up and reminded me that he was meeting Tim Sköld, asking if I wanted to come with him. No, I said, just call me back and tell me what you think of him. He did. He _really_ did. He wouldn't stop talking about Tim for a week.

For the first time I felt a twinge of jealously stab my heart.

 

 

 

 

To be continued.

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS:  
> Bullying, drug use


End file.
